Don't Close Your Eyes
by Elven-Eyed Mortal
Summary: Thoughts of some of your favorite characters just before the end of the quest, inspired by an awesome song.


Disclaimer: As always, I don't own any of these people, places, things, ideas yada yada yada rat-a-tat tat shibop shibop ram-a lam-a ding-dong.

A/N: Pov goes from Frodo at the Samoth Nour, to Merry in the houses of healing to Legolas after his arrival in Minas Tirith. And if you haven't heard of Switchfoot, you should go out to the mall immediately and listen to their latest CD The Beautiful Let-Down.

Don't Close Your Eyes

Based on a song by the Christian band Switchfoot.

'Yesterday is a wrinkle on your forehead,'

The world sways and tips before their eyes, a wilderness of flame and choking fume. He doesn't want to look up, doesn't want to acknowledge the world that tumbles about their feet. All his concentration is focused on the hand within his own, thinner than it once was, crisscrossed with ragged cuts and scratches where once there was warm, smooth flesh. Yet still it is a comfort, gentle and full of solid strength. It tightens imperceptibly, enfolding his bleeding fingers in a tender grip.

"Well Master, we could at least go further from this dangerous place here—from this Crack of Doom if that's its name, now couldn't we?" Sam asks quietly, bravely holding back the tears. "Come Mr. Frodo. Let's go down the path at any rate."

Frodo remembers when those hands cradled tiny spring blossoms and tended lush green gardens. Always they moved with the most delicate care; separating overgrown branches to be pruned, cautious not to disturb the healthy green just a breath away; tracing the swirling characters of an Elvish script while his lips formed the words; brushing an adventurous beetle from his sleeve. Those hands were not made to clamber over bruising rocks and unforgiving deserts. Yet they had been forced to follow that path, and they had done so.

"Very well Sam. If you wish to go I'll come."

'Yesterday is a promise that you've broken.'

He had sworn never to leave Pippin's side. Pip who was pure of heart and staunch of will, who would face down the dragons without a second thought because he must. Merry had promised himself that his cousin would never stand alone... neither of them; the two he held most dear. He had already sacrificed Frodo to a near hopeless fate, but Pippin was young and unprepared for such evil.

He remembered that night in the woods outside Isengard. He had been so very tired, and his friends wrestless muttering had gone mostly overlooked—until. Until he had woken to a keening wail that rose through the dark trees like the scream of some tortured child, and when he reached the moonlit clearing he had found it not far wrong.

Then he had cursed himself and the world that drove all good to naught and tore him from those he loved most even as he needed them the most. Pippin needed him; so he thought. Pip would never make it in that great, cold stone city without his Merry. But he had seen what a fine warrior he had become. The figure who emerged from the shadowy street, all dressed in knight's armor and with a royal livery upon his helm was all but a stranger, another frightening figment of his exhausted stuper. Then the sturdy arms had wrapped about him and the voice, so choked with tears and anxious joy it was barely audible; that voice was familiar at once.

And now it was Pippin's turn to set out for battle while he, Merry Brandybuck, future Master of the Hall as far away as that seemed at the moment, lay abed with an aching head and churning gut. Would it all work out in the end. Would they all be together again?

Don't close your eyes,

Don't close your eyes,

This is your life,

And today is all you've got now,'

Legolas stood with upturned face, glad for the cool breeze that tossed his unbound hair. It flushed his cheeks and filled his nose with the scent of coming rain and the first honeysuckle; and something else. Barely recognizable on that far off wind came the tang of salty sea.

He could picture the beautiful ocean in his mind's eye, ever moving green water, white sand, blown by the gusts into waves and drifts that mimicked its counterpart, and a perfectly calm blue sky. There were gulls by the sea, grey and white, crying in their mournful tones, sorrowful and lovely. But the only sorrow now was the regret of not being there himself.

"When shall I see you, oh mighty sea?" he breathed to the West. "When shall I sail home at last?" He felt so confined in this city of hard and unyielding things. The world was slipping away into darkness, a darkness he himself had fought to banish, but in the end there was only one place he wished to be. The wind gave no answer save to sigh softly in his ears and caress his brow with airy fingers. He must live for this day, as the past was gone, and the future might never come.

'This is your life,

Are you who you want to be?

This is your life,

Is it everything you dreamed that it would be,

When the world was younger, and you had everything to lose?'

Reviews are always welcome.


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